Human Factors / Cognitive Systems EngineerPosition Details

- Location: Squamish, British Columbia, or remote within Canada
- Employment Type: Permanent Full-Time
- Salary Range: CAD $110,000–$150,000 per year
- Travel: Occasional travel to support field research, flight testing, operator evaluations, and demonstrations
- Eligibility: Candidates must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada.

Position SummaryThe Cognitive Systems Engineer is responsible for ensuring FireSwarm's autonomous systems remain understandable, controllable, and operationally effective for the people who use them. Working alongside software engineers, autonomy engineers, pilots, operators, and systems engineers, this role analyzes operational work, defines human-system interaction requirements, develops interface concepts, and validates whether operators can supervise autonomous aircraft effectively during routine, abnormal, and degraded operations.

The role applies human factors engineering, cognitive systems engineering, and human-autonomy teaming methods to real operational problems. Its focus is not general product design. It is the engineering and validation of operator interaction with safety-conscious autonomous systems.

Key ResponsibilitiesOperator and Task Analysis

- Analyze operator tasks, workflows, decisions, information needs, and sources of workload.
- Conduct interviews, observations, workshops, and operational reviews with relevant stakeholders.
- Identify human-performance risks, operational bottlenecks, and opportunities for effective automation.
- Translate findings into traceable system, interface, and operational requirements.

Human-Autonomy Interaction
- Define how operators supervise, direct, delegate to, and intervene in autonomous system behaviour.
- Develop interaction concepts for mission management, exception handling, and degraded operations.
- Define operator information requirements for system state, intent, confidence, limitations, and recommended actions.
- Establish clear human authority, responsibility, and intervention boundaries across varying levels of autonomy.
- Design for the supervision of multiple aircraft without assuming that additional autonomy automatically reduces operator workload.

Interface Concepts and Prototyping




- Develop workflow models, information architectures, wireframes, and interactive prototypes.
- Use prototyping tools to evaluate concepts before production implementation.
- Specify displays, alerts, controls, and decision-support behaviour at a level suitable for software implementation.
- Collaborate with software engineers who implement production interfaces.

This role is expected to produce and test interface prototypes. Production software development is not a primary responsibility.

Evaluation and Validation

- Design and conduct simulation-based evaluations, usability studies, and operational assessments.
- Select and apply appropriate measures of workload, situation awareness, usability, intervention effectiveness, and mission performance.
- Analyze qualitative and quantitative evidence.
- Trace evaluation findings to prioritized requirements, design changes, risks, and acceptance criteria.
- Define the human-performance validation method for operator-facing autonomy capabilities.

Human Systems Integration
- Participate in system requirements, architecture, safety, verification, and operational-readiness activities.
- Identify human-performance assumptions and hazards early in development.
- Contribute human-factors evidence supporting safety assurance, operational authorization, and increasing levels of autonomous operation.
- Help ensure procedures, training, interfaces, and autonomous behaviour form a coherent operational system.

QualificationsEducationA degree in one of the following areas, or equivalent practical experience:
- Human Factors Engineering
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Cognitive Engineering
- Psychology
- Industrial Engineering
- Systems Engineering
- Aerospace Engineering

Graduate education is considered an asset when accompanied by applied work on complex technical or operational systems.

Experience





- Professional experience applying human factors, human-computer interaction, cognitive engineering, or human systems integration methods to complex systems.
- Experience conducting task analysis, operational research, usability evaluation, or human-performance studies.
- Experience translating research findings into engineering requirements or design decisions.
- Experience working directly with engineers, operators, and operational stakeholders.

Experience in aviation, autonomous systems, robotics, defence, emergency response, command-and-control, simulation, or other mission-critical environments is considered an asset.

Technical SkillsCandidates should demonstrate depth in several of the following areas:

- Task and cognitive work analysis
- Human-autonomy teaming or supervisory control
- Human factors engineering
- Experimental design
- Qualitative and quantitative research methods
- Human-performance measurement
- Interface prototyping using tools such as Figma or equivalent
- Requirements development and traceability
- Simulation-based evaluation
- Safety-critical or mission-critical systems

Experience with every listed method is not required. FireSwarm values evidence that candidates can connect operational research to concrete engineering decisions.

CompetenciesSuccessful candidates will demonstrate:

- Robust analytical and systems thinking
- Ability to bridge operational and technical perspectives
- Sound judgment when evidence is incomplete
- Clear technical writing and facilitation skills
- Ability to challenge unsafe or ineffective assumptions about automation
- Ownership and accountability
- Respect for operator expertise
- Commitment to safety, reliability, and operational effectiveness

Working EnvironmentFireSwarm develops aerial systems for demanding wildfire, emergency-response, public-safety, critical-infrastructure, and defence applications. The Human Factors Engineer will work across field research, system design, prototyping, simulation, and operational evaluation. The role requires direct collaboration with pilots, operators, software teams, and systems engineers, with occasional travel to support flight testing, field studies, and operational activities.

📌 Human Factors / Cognitive Systems Engineer (Squamish)
🏢 FireSwarm Solutions
📍 Squamish